A response to a non-creationist
Mr. C, what I don't support is trying to take the biblical creation stories--whether Genesis 1, Genesis 2-3, or the implicit storyline behind psalms like Psalm 74; 89 and other passages--and trying to turn them into scientific accounts. I would distinguish between "creation faith," which I would characterize as the theological core of the biblical creation stories, and "creationism," which I define as an attempt to mine those stories for scientific data. To me, creation faith is very important, while creationism is a distortion of the texts' purpose and promise.
I believe that God exists and that everything else that exists does exist because God has willed, at least in a general sense, for it to exist, but I don't believe that the biblical creation stories give us scientific insight into the mechanics of the process by which that will was realized in fact. In brief, at my present level of understanding, I believe that modern science gives us a reliable understanding of the mechanics of the process by which God's will-that-other-things-should-exist was realized.
Interesting, thank you for clarifying that. I can appreciate your position, especially since it was one I once held. I'm unclear as to what you are refering to in the Psalm passages, but I got ya in the Genesis passages.
My experiences with God combined with the science I have studied (used to be a physics major, have switch to biblical studies) have led me to see the miraculous as not only possible, but probable. As I study the scriptures more and more I also find the sovereignty of God to be an essential piece of theology to the Christian walk. If we are to believe that God answers prayer then we must believe that he can answer prayer. The God that can answer prayer is a sovereign one. So far I believe that we would be in agreement with each other on this. However it is by acknowledging that God has the power to accomplish all things that we realize that the creation story is possible if literally interpreted.
However that it is possible does not deal with the issues raised by science. The problem is that the issues raised by science are interpretive. Meaning that the facts of science are the observed phenomena but the theories produced to explain/understand these observed phenomena are mere interpretations of the of the facts, based on certain presuppositions (in this case one would be that the earth was older than 10K years and took longer than 6+1days to make). In many cases these theories are reliable. But in many other cases these theories need to be refined or replaced completely for newly observed phenomena. This being the case, it doesn't matter how much evidence is amassed to suggest a young earth creation, the presuppositions of the scientists prohibit them from ever accepting it as a possibility. If you remove the presuppositions and approach the bible on it own merit then a creationist perspective is far less unlikely.
As far as ID goes: it is a wimpy attempt at trying to allow creationism to be taught in the public school system. It is a cop-out and should be decried by creationists for not going far enough. Still I think I would feel uncomfortable with an unbeliever trying to teach Creationism in a class setting as they would probably make a mockery of it to impressionable children, and unlitmately do more damage than if they hear the creationist perspective from a creationist.
Tags: creationism, intelligent design, science
posted by mr. c at 12:02 AM
